His Journey to Canonization

Frs. Josef Sciberras, O.S.A. (left) and Michael Di Gregorio, O.S.A. (right) present the request to Archbishop Charles Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.

On a quiet night in the middle of August 2014, a group of twenty-five invited guests gathered at Saint Augustine Friary, Villanova, to meet with the Augustinian Postulator General, Fr. Josef Sciberras, O.S.A.

The agenda was simple, if a bit unusual. Fr. Josef had come from Rome for an informal conversation with friars and laity, relatives, friends and confreres of Fr. Bill Atkinson, to consider whether or not this friar might someday become a canonized saint of the Church.

Fr. Josef offered a challenge to those present: “Convince me that Fr. Bill lived a life of heroic virtue. Persuade me that he is a saint.” One after another, the surprised gatherers told stories of their relationships with Fr. Bill and made a case for his character, virtue, fidelity, ministry, humor and humility. By evening’s end, Fr. Josef acknowledged that he was convinced. If canonization were only that easy! But it did signal an important beginning of a process whose first phase would continue for the next seven years.

Thirteen months later, on the afternoon of September 15, 2015, the very anniversary of Fr. Bill’s death, Fr. Josef, accompanied by Villanova’s prior provincial, met for thirty minutes with Charles Chaput, O.F.M. Cap, Archbishop of Philadelphia, to present several documents, including a brief biography of Fr. Bill’s life and his own credentials as Postulator General of the Augustinian Order, and requested formally that the Cause for Fr. Bill’s beatification and canonization be opened. The request conformed to the protocol established in the Church which directs that the first stage of the beatification process take place in the diocese in which the candidate died, which, in the case of Fr. Bill, is the same diocese in which he had been born and lived almost his entire life.